Question

Give six reasons why shirk is condemned in Islam.

Answer 1

• Shirk is the highest of the wrong doing according to the instructions given by Luqman to his son. “Behold, Luqman said to his son by way of instructions: ‘o my son join not in worship (others) with Allah: for false worship is indeed the highest wrong doing.” [Q: 31:13]
• When one attaches Allah’s attributes to any of his creations, he or she undermines Allah’s sovereignty yet Allah is supposed to sovereign.
• It is of all the sins, Allah (S.W.T) vows not to forgive anyone who commits it knowingly. This is because a person who commits such a sin undermines Allah’s function as the creator, sustainer and destroyer of life. Allah (S.W.T) says,“Allah forgive not that partners should set up with Him; but He forgives anything else to whom he pleases; to set up partners with god is to devise a sin most heinous indeed.”[ Q: 4: 48]
• Belief in Shirk creates amenity in the society, since people will always be suspicious of each other and they will divot themselves with the belief in Allah as one who predetermines people’s destiny. Shirk makes man to have little or no confidence in God but in other things most especially in times of danger which defames the status of man as Allah’s vicegerent as the best of his creation.
• Shirk makes a person to distance him or herself from Allah (S.W.T) yet man is supposed to always be nearest to God pray to him whenever he or she has a problem. Yet those who practice other objects created by Allah. “And who is more astray than one who invokes ,besides Allah, such as will not answer to the day of judgment, and who(in fact)are unconscious of their call(to them)” [Q: 46:5]
• Shirk makes an individual not to be dutiful and upright, one who performs shirk does not his carry out or her duties whole heartedly and this makes her or him near to sinking all the time. Shirk makes a person behave like a coward as he or she will always be thinking that even objects which have no life can protect her or him from any danger or misfortune e.g. wearing of emulates